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'Chilkoot Connections' looks back at artwork inspired by the famous trail

Tuesday, 11 July 2023 10:50

By Stuart Bonell

Artwork by Heather Bell Callaghan, a CTFN artist featured in the exhibit

The new exhibit features traditional and contemporary art inspired by the Chilkoot Trail

Chilkoot Connections, a new art exhibit at the Yukon Arts Centre's community gallery features contemporary and traditional art inspired by the Chilkoot Trail, including work by Heather Callaghan, a citizen of Carcross-Tagish First Nation.

"(Callaghan) was also Parks Canada staff at one point working on the Chilkoot Trail," said Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) director of visual arts Mary Bradshaw, who is producing the show. "And at one point was actually an artist in residence, too." 

The Chilkoot Trail is famous for hosting tens of thousands gold-hungry stampeders from the United States who were heading to what is now Dawson City in the years around 1898.

It is a history that conjures mixed feelings, as it was an invasion on the lives of the Indigenous people in Yukon and Alaska who had lived mostly undisturbed until the so-called Gold Rush.

Artists over the years have expressed this and other emotions in their work.

Bradshaw said corresponding with "past artists who haven't been here in a long time" has been a positive experience, with many artists agreeing to loan their work back to YAC for the show.

Besides the art pieces, Chilkoot Connections will feature a short video series called “A Precious Place,” which will be screened at the exhibit’s opening at 6pm Wednesday, July 12.

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